Once; Twice; Four times a winner!
The Pound was rewarded overnight by traders in the New York and Asian sessions, pushing the UK’s currency back towards levels not seen for some 20 months. Today’s session initially drew limited support for the Pound given the fresh resistance levels that the UK currency approached overnight. Positively, this afternoon, a headline crossed terminals that Julian Smith, the British government’s enforcer, had informed parliamentarians that the Brexit agreement can be reopened if an agreement is created to produce legally-binding changes to the Irish backstop. The news decreased the headwind that the UK government would face in improving the extant Brexit deal. Base case outcomes were therefore revised upwards slightly, allowing the Pound to enjoy a renewed bid and finish four days out of the five this week comfortably in the Green. The US Dollar has struggled today, losing close to 0.5% on the day. The reason for the fall is the Federal Reserve which comes into focus once again next week. The Reserve will publish its next interest rate decision on Wednesday evening next week with the Reserve widely expected not to raise rates. The pressure on US interest rates in late-cycle economic growth is allowing the Dollar to slide against its international counterparts.
Discussion and Analysis by Charles Porter

Defiance Yesterday’s market was defying one of two things: logic or gravity. Come to think of it, perhaps both. Take cable, GBPUSD, yesterday. The key events beyond minor data releases centred around any chatter from either side of the Iranian conflict and Starmer singing for his supper. Sing he did and tweet the President did, […]
Short-lived relief rally A tantrum in the bond market has continued to erode away at risk conditions in recent sessions. In the UK, the sell-off in gilts and corporate bonds has been particularly acute thanks to heightened political instability, the origins of which we have covered thoroughly in recent briefings. Yesterday, headlines delivered enough optimism […]
One-trick market Yesterday saw significant volatility once again driven by, you guessed it, turbulent news flow surrounding the US-Iran conflict. The biggest move came just shortly after 13:15 BST when markets placed their convictions behind an unlikely source. It was reported by Al Hadath, a Saudi state-owned news channel, that work was ‘underway… to put the […]